Nottingham students' satisfaction grows

Students at The University of Nottingham are among the most satisfied when it comes to the teaching, resources and experience available to them, according to the National Student Survey.

The annual poll of final year undergraduates saw Nottingham receive an overall satisfaction rating of 88%, representing an improvement for the eighth successive year. The improved results mirror a nationwide trend, which has seen students report they are more satisfied now than at any time since the survey began in 2005.

Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Teaching and Learning Professor Alan Ford, expressed his delight after seeing the encouraging results.

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Commitment to education

He said: “The increased improvement this year is a tribute to the efforts of academic and support staff to meet the needs of students and to enhance their University experience. These efforts continue and this year we are looking to raise significantly the level of support for students in their academic skills development, review assessment practices and feedback and continue to invest extensively in IT and teaching spaces.

“We recognise that students are making a large personal commitment to their education, and the University therefore has a responsibility to work in partnership with them to provide the best possible educational environment. This involves engaging students in all levels of decision-making and responding actively to their concerns.

Professor Ford continued: “There is more to high quality education than is measured by levels of satisfaction - not least maintaining the highest education standards, providing rigorous intellectual challenges and gearing education to the wider needs of society – but achieving strong and rising levels of student satisfaction through listening to our students and adapting our practices to their needs is an important means of producing educational excellence.”

Union success

While the results saw the University rise four places to 39th among the 154 UK universities surveyed and 14th out of the 24 Russell Group institutions, the Students’ Union also received encouraging feedback. In the first year in which Unions have been featured, Nottingham received a 71% satisfaction rating, 5% above the national average.

Elsewhere, the University’s Law department and Art History course again excelled, each recording an overall satisfaction rating of 98%, there was 100% approval rating among midwifery and physiotherapy students, while the Archaeology, Classics, Philosophy, Theology and Veterinary courses all achieved an overall percentage of over 95%.

The results will now be used to influence national university league tables as well as the newly introduced Key Information Sets (KIS), providing comparable information designed to give prospective students and their advisers the information they need to make informed decisions about what and where to study at university.

Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham has 42,000 students at award-winning campuses in the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia; according to the Sunday Times University Guide 2012, ‘Of all the British universities, Nottingham has embraced internationalism the most.’ It is also one of the most popular universities in the UK by application numbers, and ‘the world’s greenest university’. It is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 75 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) and the QS World University Rankings.

More than 90 per cent of research at The University of Nottingham is of international quality, according to the most recent Research Assessment Exercise. The University aims to be recognised around the world for its signature contributions, especially in global food security, energy & sustainability, and health. The University won a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2011, for its research into global food security.